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INTRODUCTION In 1898 the field of Tibeto-Burman studies was greatly enriched by the publication of a 568-page dictionary, replete with examples of usage and an extensive English index, devoted to a rather obscure language spoken in southern Sikkim and a few surrounding areas. The language, Lepcha, despite being the mother-tongue of perhaps only about 30,000 people (or, according to Bradley 1997, ''probably as few as 4,000''), has been the object of several dozen studies over the last century or so (for all these figures I am relying on the book under review). Certainly the existence of the 1898 dictionary (by Mainwaring, extensively edited by Grünwedel), and in particular its large English-Lepcha index, acted as an important stimulus for these studies. Thus it is no accident that Benedict's 1972 _Sino-Tibetan - a Conspectus_, the seminal study in the history of Tibeto-Burman research, refers so often to examples from this language.

For many decades then, scholars concerned with Tibeto-Burman (TB) historical linguistics have often referred to the 1898 dictionary, but not without some uneasiness due to its age and lack of a more modern linguistic approach. Plaisier's new book is thus a precious gift to the whole field of TB studies since it is a large-scale, modern, accurate treatment of Lepcha. Although the book is called ''A Grammar of Lepcha'', I feel this is somewhat misleading: this is not a thorough-going, hundreds of pages long detailed examination of Lepcha grammar with many examples of each grammatical topic. What Plaisier has given the world is rather a ''Manual of Lepcha'', in other words a set of materials which, if used properly, could enable the reader to attain a practical command of the language. In my view, her presentation of the language in this way is actually more effective and direct. In other words, this book is more suited to helping the reader to learn Lepcha, not simply to learn about it.

SUMMARY The 16-page introduction discusses the Lepcha people in respect to settlement patterns, history, ethnological and cultural details, and finishes with a summary of the publications (19th through 21st century) about the Lepchas and their language. The next chapter introduces the phonological system (in which there is little variation among the 4 major settlement areas) and includes an extensive discussion of matters orthographical. Plaisier then refers the reader to Sprigg 1966 for more details. The vowel symbols used in the 1898 dictionary are rather non-conventional and confusing [ due to problems in email transmission, please note the following usage: schwa = the vowel in AmEng luck, love; = the vowel in CentEast AmEng, southernBrit cause, talk; x = a tone-category in Drung; W = high central vowel] (e.g. 'a' with acute accent =schwa, a = a , 'o' with acute accent = , o = o ) , but instead of either completely sticking with this well-known, if somewhat peculiar system, or completely replacing it with a more standard symbology, Plaisier uses /a/ (and also 'a' with a circumflex accent) for schwa , and then 'a' with acute accent for low-central a , thus more or less the opposite of how these vowels are represented in the 1898 dictionary. Although Plaisier's choices here stick closer to Mainwaring's original vision, the main reference book that most TB scholars have at hand, the 1898 dictionary, goes by Grünwedel's system. In any case, Plaisier provides us with a detailed table (pages 42-43) which shows all the basic syllabic types in Lepcha script along with four different systems of romanization.

The author points out a crucial contrast in two series of consonants, e.g. _gr-_ vs. retroflex d , i.e. true clusters vs. a series of retroflex stops; this contrast is not presented very clearly in the 1898 dictionary. On p.25, Plaisier informs us that the retroflex-initial words are mainly loanwords from Tibetan, but then adds that some native Lepcha clusters are now also pronounced as retroflex stops. More on this problem below.

Plaisier devotes considerable space to discussing the complexities of the native Lepcha alphabet and to what extent it reflects the actual phonology. Although it is derived from Tibetan script, it contains so many innovations (e.g. the _s_ looks almost exactly like an Arabic _s_ ) that for a Tibetanist it is probably quite a bit easier to master, say, the Tibetan-derived Phags-pa alphabet. On her ''Acknowledgements'' page Plaisier mentions Jason Glavy, ''who developed the Lepcha font that is used here.''

To quickly describe the rest of the book, there is a chapter on Nominal Morphology which, within a mere 50 pages, manages to cover a wide range of topics in an insightful and clear manner. There follow shorter chapters on Verbal Morphology and Particles, Coordination, Subordination which, while not as exhaustive as one might like, are well-organized and show an effective use of modern linguistic theory in the way the topics are presented.

The next 69 pages consist of six stories or dialogues, first in the native script, then in a parallel-lines version where the upper line is the transliteration (also showing some prosodic information) and the lower line gives word by word English glosses plus identification of grammatical functions. The final section of each story is a fluent English translation which is divided into numbered sections for reference to the previous, analytical section. A comprehensive glossary, ordered roughly according to the Tibetan tradition, is followed by a bibliography and index, all in all about 270 pages.

EVALUATION Here I make a few comments on places where I would have liked to see more discussion, which I follow with a general evaluation.

In the phonology section, there is, unfortunately, little explicit information about prosody aside from the remark (p.32) that stress is ''usually on the second syllable.''

This reviewer was puzzled about some of the discussion of true clusters vs. retroflex stops: for example, Plaisier's Glossary at the end of her book has _dre_ 'demon' which almost perfectly corresponds to the Tibetan written and (in some dialects) spoken forms, but the glossary also has _tre_ 'mule', which has the same _dr-_ , not _tr-_ , in Tibetan. Some forms of this etymon in other TB languages include Southern Monpa _greq_ , Bugun _grei_ , Drung _krix_, and E. Gyarung _rke_ . These are all presumed to be loanwords from some earlier stage of Tibetan (actually, Monpa is itself a kind of outlier Tibetan), and all these could be explained by deriving Written Tibetan _dre_ from earlier *_gre_ (in Central Tibetan, all _gr-_ whether written or spoken have long since assimilated to _dr-_ which is usually pronounced as a retroflex stop). So, when we see _kre_ 'mule' in the 1898 dictionary, what are we to think? Was that a not-sufficiently accurate rendition for what was really _tre_ , or was it actually a velar cluster which has since been regularized according to modern Tibetan pronunciation, thus _kre_ > _tre_ ? That Tibetan velar initials can still be conserved in Lepcha is seen in the Glossary's _kyng_ 'village' (cf. Written Tibetan [ wTib] _grong_ ) and _khyW_ 'bathe' (cf. wTib. _khrud_ ) . Lepcha _krít_ 'hunger' looks like it is derived from wTib _bkres_ ( _-s_ > _-t_ in Lepcha), and _krk_ 'recover' must be a loan, cf. wTib _drag_- ( < *_grag_ ) 'get well, be healed'. The whole issue of how the retroflex-stop series developed in Lepcha, how it has interacted with the grave stop + -r- clusters, and the date and manner in which Tibetan words entered the Lepcha language still needs more careful research.

I managed to locate Glavy's URL concerning the Lepcha script used by Plaisier (http://www.geocities.com/jglavy/asian.html); one can actually download a Lepcha font from this site. As for typing it into a document, Glavy refers to a Keyman Lepcha keyboard program available at Tavultesoft.com , but it turns out that site has no references to Lepcha or Sikkim, so Plaisier's efforts to share Lepcha with the world would be more effective if she could take care of this problem. One way might be to upload the keyboard program to http://www.lepcha.info/ which is a site apparently established by Plaisier herself.

On the back cover of the book it states: ''Lepcha represents a branch unto itself within the Tibeto-Burman languages.'' Although Plaisier's book, being more of a ''manual'' (cf. above), can serve as a useful tool for acquiring a practical command of the language, it could probably be said that the majority of scholars in the TB field are more interested in answers to the puzzle of Lepcha's genetic connection to the rest of TB, and would hardly agree that this language constitutes ''a branch unto itself''. Sprigg 1989 mentions some recent work in this area, with different scholars coming to quite different conclusions, e.g. that Lepcha is close to Ao (a Naga language in the Kuki-Chin-Naga group), or that it is most related to Mikir (an outlier connected with this group), or that it is most like Mising/Adi, or that it is connected with Magar; Bradley 1997 places it somewhere in his ill-defined ''Central TB'' group along with a number of languages with ill-defined pedigree, i.e. Sulung, Nishi, Idu, Keman, Trung et al. Thus Lepcha has been connected with other TB languages hundreds of kilometers to its east or west; is it a lonely hold-out when its congeners have all moved off far away? Or did the Lepchas, long ago, have some reason to flee their earlier homeland and end up in Sikkim? To this reviewer (who has a somewhat similar ''Central'' group in his 1995 dissertation) it is striking that almost all the genetically ill-defined TB languages are to be found in a narrow belt of mountainous regions stretching from central Nepal eastward to the great barrier of multiple, steep north-south river valleys that stretch eastward from northern Burma. The lexicostatistical studies seen so far on Lepcha seem a bit lacking in methodological rigor. Does it really have an Austroasiatic substratum? In any case, how do we explain the many common words which do not look like anything in TB, along side all the other words which look very like TB, but what kind of TB? A number of researchers around the world, and, presumably, at least a few of the more educated Lepcha themselves, are interested in these puzzles. In the book itself, Plaisier makes no mention of these matters, so I will assume the above-mentioned statement on the back cover to be the kind of bold generalization often found in advertisements.

Everyone has different interests and strengths; this fine work produced by Plaisier shows her competence as a field-worker, descriptivist, and educator. Whether or not she wishes to enter the fray surrounding the origins of the Lepcha language and people, her new book is not only a valuable tool for learners of the language, but also a much clearer and more reliable picture of the phonology and lexicon, therefore of great value to other scholars already engaged in TB lexicostatistic studies.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER Jakob Dempsey is an Associate Professor in the foreign-languages/linguistics department in Yuan Ze University, Taiwan. He has an M.A. in Tibetan and a Ph.D. in Asian Linguistics (University of Washington, Seattle). Interests include historical phonology and comparative dialectology (esp. TB, Chinese, Iranian, Middle English, and Coptic). Courses taught include phonetics, English aural comprehension, sociolinguistics, general linguistics, and Korean. Many years ago he spent 14 months living in Afghanistan, and would like to go there again, but not for the time being.
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